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Sarah Marshall is a pharmacist and
freelance writer from Banchory, Aberdeenshire
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Chocolate history
The Maya, an ancient people living in Central America
were cultivating
Theobroma cacao as early as 600BC, using the beans as
currency and the basis of a beverage.
Spanish conquistadores
arriving
in Mexico in 1519 learnt of a drink used by the Aztecs called xocolatl or kukuh.
Prepared from roasted and ground cocoa beans, vanilla, chilli,
wild honey and corn, it was widely used in ceremonies
and
rituals. The recipe was adapted for Spanish tastes by apothecary
monks and became popular in the Spanish court. Slowly the beverage
spread throughout Europe.
It arrived in 1657, as an expensive
luxury in London, where it was served as a rather fatty drink mixed
with
potato starch and sago flour. The development of a method in
1828 for obtaining chocolate powder by pressing much of the cocoa
butter
from ground and roasted beans made it possible to formulate a
more palatable product.
In 1847, the English firm Fry & Sons produced chocolate for
eating by combining chocolate liquor with extra expressed cocoa
butter and
sugar. In 1876, Daniel Peter of Switzerland added dried milk to
produce milk chocolate. This led to the widespread proliferation
of chocolate
and associated products. |
SUMMARY
Chocolate has been eaten at Easter since the early 1800s, when chocolate
Easter eggs first appeared in France and Germany. They were initially
solid but eventually became the hollow versions we know today, painstakingly
prepared by painting chocolate paste onto moulds until a method was invented
to allow liquid chocolate to flow into moulds. Now, over 80 million chocolate
Easter eggs are sold in the UK alone each year.
Chocolate is prepared from the seeds (cocoa beans) of the cacao tree.
Linnaeus named this tree Theobroma cacao, theobroma meaning food of the
gods. The cacao tree is indigenous to equatorial regions of the Americas,
but is now cultivated in tropical areas throughout the world. The mature
tree produces seed pods up to 35cm long and weighing up to 1kg, which
grow on both the branches and the trunk and vary in colour from bright
yellow to deep purple.
Ripe seed pods are removed from the trees and split open to release the
40–50 beans, which are allowed to ferment for several days so that
the flavour develops. The beans are then dried and heated, before the
shells are cracked and separated from the heavier nibs. The nibs are
then roasted and ground to produce cocoa mass (or chocolate liquor),
which comprises cocoa particles suspended in 50–55 per cent cocoa
butter.
Cocoa mass is subjected to hydraulic pressing to remove about half of
the cocoa butter and produce cocoa cakes, which can then be ground to
make cocoa powder. Dark chocolate contains cocoa mass, cocoa butter and
sugar, whereas milk chocolate contains additional milk solids, flavourings
and, sometimes, other vegetable fats, such as coconut oil. White chocolate
is similar to milk chocolate but lacks the cocoa mass. The ingredients
are blended, ground to a smooth consistency and stirred (“conched”)
to develop the flavour. Lastly, the chocolate is tempered (mixed and
cooled) to make it smoother and glossy.
The quality of the chocolate depends on the blend of beans used, the
type and amount of milk and other ingredients added, and the kind and
degree of roasting, refining, conching or other processing.
Full text article (PDF 110K) |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal